Spoiler Warning: Ms. Marvel Season One

The first season of Ms. Marvel just wrapped on Disney+ to astounding critical success. The show was part of a new turn for Disney, being one among the few productions that focuses more directly on cultures that are not American. While this may have alienated some domestic audiences, what it did for the Marvel canon was astounding. Not only has it opened up the Marvel world to expand into more places besides America and space, but it’s also created another link in the chain that connects this new generation of superheroes.

But there were several things the Disney+ series changed about Ms. Marvel’s abilities. Though they remained largely the same in practice, save for those floating platforms she likes to walk on, Disney created many disparities with the comic book world that ended up raising some questions from Ms. Marvel fans.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

But despite this departure from the source material, Disney has created some very specific links in the complicated web of MCU heroes. And it affects the meta-canon (the relationship between properties, e.g., Sony vs. Marvel) as much as it affects the in-universe relationships between heroes. Still, the series left us with as many questions as it tried to answer. But if we can sort out just where Kamala Khan’s powers come from, we’ll find it positively affects the MCU.

So Where Do Ms. Marvel’s Powers Come From?

     Marvel Studios

One thing to understand first is that in the comic books, Kamala Khan is an Inhuman. This means she possessed a latent “super” gene that became activated when Black Bolt (King of the Inhumans) released the Terrigen Mist into the Earth’s atmosphere. She can grow and extend her limbs, which we sort of saw in the Disney+ series, and she can shapeshift, changing her appearance at will, which is something we did not see in the series.

So already, we have a slight difference in comic powers and TV powers. If we had to compare her to anyone, the comic book Ms. Marvel would be more similar to Mr. Fantastic, and the Disney+ Ms. Marvel would be closer to Green Lantern. After all, the first time she used her powers in the series, she described it as “an idea made real.”

But the fact that her powers are different isn’t the end of the matter. After all, Disney could potentially retcon her powers in the series to work more as they do in the books despite where they come from. But therein we have a bit of a problem. The Disney+ series makes the source of Kamala’s powers somewhat confusing. At first, we see Kamala adopt her abilities from an ancient bangle. Simple enough. It could be similar to whatever Shang-Chi’s ten rings are made of. But then we find out she is only able to wield the band because of her genetic relationship to the Djinn or Clandestine, an otherworldly race of people that found themselves stranded on our plane of existence. And that seems fair enough as well. That artifact could be directly related to this alternate plane, the Noor.

But then two things happen: the first, Kamala’s friend Bruno tells her that her powers come from “a mutation” in her genetic code. We even hear a little blip of the X-Men theme song from the 90s. The second thing, in the post-credit scene of Ms. Marvel, Kamala seems to be warped away somewhere and replaced with Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel. And while that does seem to be what logically happened, the event has caused some people to wonder if this was actually some interdimensional Terrigenesis cocoon, and Kamala is actually shapeshifting in that scene instead of being warped somewhere. But Captain Marvel does look around in the room plastered in posters of her likeness and seems a bit confused by it, so it’s more likely that this is the actual Carol Danvers.

What Does This Mean for the MCU?

     Marvel Comics

In the Disney+ series, we’re left in a confused state, questioning where Ms. Marvel’s powers have come from. But Kamala seems determined to shrug off where her powers came from and what it means for her character. She makes a note of saying, “It will just be another label.” As if to say that the producers don’t really care to explain it.

But all of these explanations for where her powers come from can potentially connect her character to three different groups of superheroes: the X-Men, the Inhumans, and Shang-Chi. Kamala Khan is already being linked to Captain Marvel in the upcoming movie The Marvels.

Despite this confusing origin, Ms. Marvel is now a very versatile canonical vehicle through which Disney can solve a lot of its problems. This mutation creates another opening for the X-Men that the MCU so desperately needs. But that difference in her genetics is broad enough to where it could always be retconned into connecting her to the Inhumans, like in the books. And her bangle could link her to this emerging storyline of strange artifacts, which started in the post-credit scene of Shang-Chi.

So no matter how the MCU plans on solving its own puzzle, created by years of licensing issues and unforeseeable storytelling, Kamala Khan has the unique superpower of being able to fit in any slot the MCU might need her to go.